Thursday, August 6, 2009

It was a bit of hard and wild racing at the Gilles Villenueve circuit in Montreal Canada for the G1-GP season 3 LMP 900 round 1 race..... A 1st lap crunch in turn 2 , started it off, involving 3 cars and ultimately retiring Nella Boccara. 3 drivers barely avoided the wreck and continued on after the leaders.

Up in the front Remon Franizzi ran away a little bit with Jafo Tendaze in hot pursuit ... Remon ran a near flawless race ultimately getting the win . Jafo had it a bit worse , unfortunately was using a car setup nearly verbatim from myself and suffered late race Brake failure and retirement , just as i did hehe .

There were several notable duels during the race, Suku Ming vs Suzy Cuddihy for 3rd.... Myself and Katier Reitveld had a fun running battle for a lap or 2 , several good passes back and forth by both of us . Sulla Looming stayed steady and fast , with Jafo putting on heavy pressure near the end of race before his brakes failed . Sulla got 2nd, Suzy Cuddihy 3rd, Suku Ming 4th and Jafo ended up 5th in official scoring .

6 cars of 11 retired from this one in quite a bash em up ...Canada was one of the harder races on the schedule , but i dont think anyone quite expected that many cars to go down ... well thats racing , Drivers will cheer triumph or wince in defeat for a moment or 2 and focus on the next round , which is the first of 3 UK races this season at Silverstone raceway .

Thursday, July 16, 2009

The G1-GP season 2 has finally come to a close with triumph and heartbreak at the Round 10 russian roullette match at Buffalo Back park figure 8. The season had come down to a final showdown between Suku Ming and Sulla Looming , with Suku leading in the standings by just 1 point . Having led after 9 rounds , it was Suku's choice for the final race, and Suku made the controversial choice of Legends on the dirt figure 8 at Buffalo Back .

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With a car crunching crossover at mid track, it was up in the air wether anyone would finish the race. Jafo Tendaze landed his 4th pole with the Legends cars , pole ace Sulla Looming was suprisingly unable to do better than 6th on grid , despite being significantly faster during practice sessions.

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But one thing about Sulla , when she lacks in qualifying she is determined to make up in starts and this was no exception , jumping quickly from 6th to 2nd by turn 1 . Jafo led around for 5 laps before Sulla cornered hard and fast making a nice pass on him. Suku was determined to keep pace, having stayed in close 3rd to this point.

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But soon Jafo's times started lagging , holding Suku up some , meanwhile Sulla steadily pulled away , leading around for the next 11 laps . By this time in race, nearly half a lap back , Myself, Rattra and Yuriko had been dueling it out for positions 4th - 6th lap after lap ...then came the fatefull lap 17 . Rattra was in 4th and around the turn and off to the crossover first, me close behind and Yuriko close behind me .

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Out of my peripheral i saw Sulla approaching the crossover from the opposite direction, from my perspective at current speeds there looked to be a collision, Rattra and Yuriko didnt hesitate and made it thru safely , i didnt try to make it thru instead stood on the brakes hard, while Sulla had been slowing herself to avoid the crossover traffic...and then crunch ..i T-boned Sulla, we were both out of shape and stunned i think, both got going again. But Sulla's chassis had taken a bit of damage and her handling was kaput forcing her to retire.

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I only had a little bit of handling loss and was able to finish in 5th ...Suku held on strong for the remaining 14 laps , winning the race and the Season 2 championship. Jafo had fallen back due to difficulties and finished 4th , but Rattra and Yuriko had held on and battled tooth and nail for the rest of the race and 2nd place . Yuriko had 2nd going into final straight , but Rattra had the jump on her and pulled away in the last meters for a exciting finish and 2nd place.

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Thus season 2 comes to a end , after Legends on some good oval fights, Rally cars thru the mountains that made for some exciting races to drive, and F3's thru some classic close quarter street tracks, and a dirt figure 8 to finish it all...it was a unusual season to say the least , i had alot of fun and i hope everyone else did too .

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But thats not all , not nearly all...we are now gearing up for our first top series season with LMP 900 prototypes ..and at the same time will be running a 18 race Late model stock season that should be alot of fun also ..stay tuned more to come ... Including ...finally...the final 2 race highlight reel for season 1

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

As the 2nd successful season of Second Life drivers racing on Rfactor is drawing to a close... I am doing some limited recruiting to expand our ranks for upcoming season 3 . Season 3 test races will begin approx mid July and the season will officialy kickoff approx early August . Here are some of the requirements to join us... for what has been some really fun racing ....

1.. need to be a friend or aquaintance of mine within SL , pre-race and post race happen within the confines of SL , so having a SL background is a must .

2. Need Rfactor program , costs anywhere from 20 to $30 US , depending on how you get it , ebay or amazon, or as a Download ect...

3. Need some level of controller above just a keyboard, Gamepad is cheapest , and has been used as a effective controller by several of the current racers, wheel is ideal but not a requirement...in fact if you can handle just driving with keyboard , your more than welcome too.

4. Some patience with the process, the technical nature of Rfactor does make you jump thru a few hoops in getting setup , Downloading and installing mods and stuff, this is something that becomes "old hat" after doing it a bit . We have a alot of people willing to help you also .

5. Official League times are Open practice monday and tuesdays at 6pm SLT to approx 8 or 9pm or so .. this isnt mandatory, just a good way to exchange setups , to make sure no one is having probs connecting to server , some race traffic practice and to compare times with other racers.Races are held Wednesdays at 5pm SLT ....and are run in following format ....----5pm SLT Driver meeting at G1-GP Clubhouse....at 5:10 Server will go up for Race practice----Race practice lasts between 30 to 45 minutes depending on track and my own judgment of how much practice some people may need.----Qualify session , usual format is 10 laps in a 20 minute session---- Race....Races vary in length , but for season 3 , will last from 30 to 40 minutes .----Post-Race wrap up and podium ceremony back at the G1-GP clubhouse, entire event lasts approx 2 hours.

Season 3 will be run using a mod , the cars will be LMP 900s (LeMans prototypes) , run in a series of 10 real world road courses. Some of the tracks are included with Rfactor , some need to be downloaded and installed ...all info for that will be supplied by me and everyone currently in the league are a great help to new racers if theres any help needed. I will be releasing the season 3 schedule shortly .

The following is a short demo video of the cars and game , showing off the sights and sounds that will be part of season 3 ... Contact me in SL if you are interested , thanks .....

We are only accepting a limited amount of new drivers ..so if interested send me a IM asap

Saturday, June 27, 2009

To catch up a little.... im gonna cover both the last FormulaSL race (round 10 at Amber Raceway) and the last G1-GP race (Round 8 at Lienz Hillclimb) with this post .

For a period spanning 44 rounds of FormulaSL and MotoSL , Archer racing had been in 1st place, but that came to a end with FormulaSL Round 9 at Bekstone raceway, Annie Gufler and AM Pro racing became the first team to topple Archer from the top spot since its creation back in season 1 of FormulaSL . Not a team to stay down when down, Archer put in the effort needed to regain the top spot.

Annie had her worst finish of the season at Amber raceway finishing 8th , Jafo finished 2nd and Yuriko 3rd. Needing to gain 4 points on Am Pro to regain the Team points lead, Archer gained 29 points on them. But the story of Round 10 was InDrive's Zaria Falconer who gave herself and her team their first RaceSL victory. Jafo and Yuriko both led the race at various times , but in the end Zaria grabbed the lead after the field took its 2nd pitstop and led the last 7 laps for the victory, her teamie Caz Freschi finished 4th .

Big grats to Zaria and her team on the victory, and big grats to my own team on their superb performance in regaining the Team lead. Round 11 of FSL season 3 will be at Racer's island Midnight track.

Round 8 of G1-GP season 2 ....Lienz hillclimb. The 3rd and final rally race of season 2 , promised to be prolly the most difficult , with average times of 3 minutes and 50 seconds a lap, the Lienz hillclimb mixed a combination of offroad dirt and paved racetrack .

Like previous Lienz Rally races, this one consisted of 2 seperate races, with the final results being compiled from the results of both races. Jafo Tendaze impressed all with his 3rd pole position of the season . But this was still not enough to stop a hard charging Sulla Looming from jumping as fast as possible to the front of the pack.

In the first race this was aided by most of the field overshooting turn 1 onto the dirt portion of the race track, Sulla raced ahead into the lead with myself at first following closely . But my luck soon ran out later on the 1st lap , i overshot a turn a little and was going to fast and too wide into one of the faster portions of the paved track, striking a portion of guardrail head on .

This put the kaibosh on the rest of my race, Sulla won it , with Katier close behind in 2nd and Jafo finishing 3rd.

Up next was the 2nd round with Jafo again on pole , again Sulla proved quick at the start... racing into lead, but it was Sulla's turn to run out of luck, running in 3rd i sorta saw what happened , but all i know is i saw Sulla careen far to the left into the woods and ..kapowww hit a tree which sent her flying back onto the dirt track sideways blocking the path of Katier who was at that point running 2nd .

I barely nudged my way past the mess and into the lead where i stayed for the rest of the race. Behind me Jafo and Katier were racing the real race , both of them battling back and forth with the possibility of whichever of them finished 2nd would get the overall win . But in the end Katier prevailed and thus captured her 1st G1-GP victory . Jafo was 2nd overall, with Sulla 3rd, Rattra Raymaker 4th and myself 5th .

Next Round for G1-GP season 2 is F3s at the venerable Monaco city street track , with 4 persons still very much in the run for the championship. Suku Ming currently leads..Sulla and Myself in 2nd and 3rd tied in points, and Caz freschi , unfortunately having missed the hillclimb..still not very far behind in 4th .

Some quick facts after 8 races, 5 different winners , 9 different people having been on the podium, only 1 polesitter of 8 has taken a victory.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

It was just over 2 years ago i strolled into Mooz looking for the MotoSL 2 season. I found out i was a few weeks too late , instead i found RaceSL, a close knit group of fellow racers , 5 seasons of Formula and Superbikes. But alas a struggling economy and a struggling technology takes another victim with the 3rd major RaceSL track, the home track , lost in 2009.---

The first being Snowpeach, home track of Museum of Robots owned by Count and Bibi Bayliss, long time supporters and contributers. This was one of my fav tracks on the circuit. Next was RD Motorsports sim, owned by Raver Bellow and home of the Canyon track and Raver's own Wide track. FormulaSL season 3 , round 9 is the final race at Mooz , on a new track located high in the sky, designed and built by Bikey Bekkers.---Zaria Falconer and Caz Freschi of Kokopelli's InDrive team did great, battling each other back and forth for 2nd and 3rd, Zaria prevailing in the end .--Caz actualy qualified into the B group, but ran that race solidly getting the advance. HotWire driver Suzy Cuddihy looked like she would get 2nd , but it wasnt to be . Frutopian Mango Birdbrain getting up for 2nd and the pass to Group A instead.---Ashe Revnik and Abacus Mimistrobell got 1st and 2nd in the C race, with Molly Fitzgerald just missing out after tangling with non-yielding traffic while in the lead. Molly got back to 2nd , fell to 3rd last lap .---Abacus handily won the D group race. Although gone , the history of mooz lives on, as does the track, with Les Whites handy track rezzers, Mooz can be put down anywhere a friendly low lag sim will let him....the same with Snowpeach, Canyon and the Wide Track, so the hope is that all that is lost is a bit of a inflated monthly bill and ....a sim , although classified and class 5, seemed to often be sick and not quite performing up to its advertised potential .---Round 10 moves us to host Amber Raceway , a multi-tiered track , with a club, drag strip, airplane pylon racing , a resort and alot of fun things to do.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Finaly doing a overdue update on the how the G1-GP season 2 is coming along since i havent posted since Round 1.....we are up to Round 5 with Round 6 just around the corner .

Round 2 at Lienze GP short... the first rally race of the season was well anticipated cause this is a small fun track. Consensus was that it would be crashed filled with alot of people finishing the race crashed out ...but actualy quite the opposite everyone did quite well and finished the race in its entirety.

Sulla Looming proved unstoppable here , winning both races that comprise the event . Caz Freschi gave Sulla a run for her money in the 2nd race, but once Sulla got by she was gone . Caz finished 2nd overall, myself 3rd, and Yum Divesadero scored a G1-GP career high finish of 4th .

Round 3 at Miami Bayfront ...for round 3 we switch to F3s at the small tight Miami track . I had hopes for a pole position after driving well during the weeks practice rounds, but things dont always worked out , Remon Franizzi grabbed pole , and i was all way down in 5th .

Caz Freschi didnt disappoint his fans in the crowd that were waving signs that read "Green means go !" , "Pit Limiters, not just for the pits!" , "Chill out!!" and "Milk does the body good" , as the greens flashed , Caz was waiting for a 2nd opinion on the matter....meanwhile much to the chagrin of everyone behind him, Remon, Sulla and myself on other side of grid, got good starts and raced ahead to turn 1 .

Remon led around for a good half the race, Sulla in 2nd till she spun and smacked the wall and pitted for repairs, into 2nd i went and after Remon . After a nice pass if i do say so myself , i was in the lead and never looked back grabbing my first win of season . Remon got 2nd, Jafo Tendaze 3rd , Caz eventualy joined in the fun after his mis-start and got up for 4th, Katier Reitveld rounded out top 5.

Round 4 at Joesville ....Round 4 brought us back to the Legends cars at the 1/2 mile oval at Joesville. Jafo nailed his 2nd pole position of the season on the ovals . But it was Suku Ming who got the the best start and led the pack around for all 50 laps for her 2nd victory of season , Jafo hot on Suku's heels for 2nd and myself 3rd. Nella Bocarra and Sulla Looming both had incidents resulting in big crashes .

Round 5 at Lienz GP....the 2nd rally round of the season , brought us to maybe arguably the hardest track of the season , the 3 minute a lap Lienz GP , and prolly the most mayhem of the season . There was no shortage of wrecks and questionable driving in this one . Favorite Sulla Looming crashed out on the 1 lap qualify round setting her back in the pack for both races.While i was out front with my first pole of season and i made the best of it running out front as hard as i could .

It wasnt enough in the first race though , leading the whole thing i spun once in the final lap , allowing Sulla who had worked her way up to 2nd early on to pass and take the win . Race 2 was much the same me out front , Sulla worked her way up to 2nd , but lost concentration and crashed out early . Highlights of this race was a nice racing battle between Suku and Rattra Raymaker for 2nd place.

Suku did a great job holding off Rattra for awhile , but eventualy he was able to get by, but just long enough to get spun by lapped traffic allowing Suku by again where she finished 2nd in the race. Fortunately for Rattra his points in both races was good enough to get him 2nd overall. Suku finishing a impressive 3rd overall , Remon 4th and Katier 5th .

Monday, May 25, 2009

Round 7 found a little smaller field of 23 drivers attending , cause of the holliday weekend , this time at the PSU 1 track at Motorato Ware's Hotwire racetrack sim . Just check archives if you wanna know how i feel about my luck at this track hehe.

Annie Gufler took her 6th Pole and 6th win of the season , but this time just ahead of Jafo Tendaze looking for his first win of the season . Jafo was hunting Annie for the last 8 laps of the race, closing the gap in the last 3 , but Annie held on for the win . Jafo 2nd , and Laney Recreant with her 2nd podium of season coming in 3rd after advancing from the B group race and putting on a very nice performance in the A group race.

I got a rare glimpse at the front and led for a few laps before my old friend PSU 1 badluck paid me a visit , and i finished 4th overall . Silk Bamboo shared in some of my luck , there was plenty to go around , with a early lead at start of race, Silk looked strong to finish 3rd, but ran into troubles ending up in 5th .

One car i thought would finish higher was Racers Island's own Brave Ashbourne , i heard his engine buzzing close in my ear a few times over several laps , i think Brave was held up sometimes by my shaky driving at that point in race, but he drove much like a racer in RL would without charging thru at first chance no matter what , unfortunately Brave ran into some troubles and fell back before getting by me , finishing in 6th.

Caz Freschi and Yuriko Nishi rounded out the field also having races with heaping helpings of bad luck and technical difficulties. Annie Gufler now leads the points championship by a large margin , with Yuriko in 2nd and Jafo 3rd .

Other highlights of day started in D race , where Amber Raceway veteran Kelly Grumiaux had a good race, driving steady in 2nd place, looking like she would get the advance with RattraRaymaker who led the whole race, but Kelly ran into trouble, and her own team mate TracyTorok got by and finsihed 2nd .

C race might have been most chaotic of the day , with alot of collisions alot of off roading and mayhem . The story early in the race was Race island's Nella Bocarra, on a mission to score some points was in 2nd and even led for a bit in early laps of race before falling back , unfortunately finishing 8th after more troubles.

Around laps 5 and 6 the field settled down some , with returning veteran Yamaha Harley holding onto a steady lead, untill he pitted, Yamaha seemed to be in the pits forever before finally exiting in 5th place, Yamaha ended up finishing 3rd and a very good performance despite being rusty .

After the pits DYG driver Darko Revnik took over and led the rest of the 20 lap race, winning his first FSL group race, grats to DYG team they certainly have put in the practice in effort to improve steadily during this season.

The other story of C race was Shoshin racing's Ford Roffo, who has been qualifying well lately but unable to bring home the bacon in the main races, this time was different, Ford hovered around the top 4 all race , driving steady enough to grab 2nd and a pass to the B race.

B race was punctuated mostly by Caz Freschi running a tight race, leading nearly the entire thing , Motorato Ware gave chase early in the race, but contact with traffic put her in trouble around lap 10 . In the end Caz ran into enough problems to get 2nd behind Laney Recreant who filled the void when Moto fell back .